This is the text of my Christmas story which had its first reading on GB New last night
Once upon a time not so distant the United Kingdom was in turmoil. Its recently elected government had become very unpopular. They had swept into power offering the fastest growth in the advanced world, but were mired in stagnation. They had promised an end to price rises, only to see inflation near double. They had told people with faster growth they could deliver better public services without putting their taxes up. Instead they had given every one a shock with their first budget heaping more taxes on a hard pressed people, promising them it would be one and done. They then put through a second budget, with even more bad news soaking the not so rich.
Realising they needed to do something the ruling party agreed to hold a contest to see who should be the true leader to sort out the mess. Wanting to appear more rooted in historial traditions, they looked to how King Arthur had emerged as a popular and successful leader all those years ago. They decided on a modern version of the sword in the stone. Only the one who could pull the sword of growth from the anvil of a stagnant economy would be chosen to lead the country to faster growth. They were needed to rescue the struggling Labour knights squabbling around the cabinet table. Adapting the Arthurian words they wrote “Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil by entering the growth code is the rightful PM of the UK”. They tried to make their inscribed stone look different to Ed Miliband’s 2015 show stopper. It was so modern they thought, that there was a digital lock on the anvil. Only a leader who was good with a smart phone would triumph in this radically modernised version of how the UK chooses its best leaders.
They decided to say the UK, not England. They recognised that their policy towards the EU and the Republic of Ireland was going to end in Northern Ireland not being under UK rule, but they wished to hold on to Wales and Scotland where nationalist parties were doing better again as the UK government become more unpopular. They saw no contradiction in associating and looking back to the great English legends, whilst themselves wanting to break up England into unloved regions as the EU had always done.
They fell to arguing over whether the code to unlock the sword should require the candidates to reveal a digital ID. They asked if they should have a double or triple lock on the device with an enabling code to proceed to be sent to the smartphone of the candidate. They were concerned that this most important of tasks could be disrupted by a cyber attack from a foreign power. They decided to leave it to candidates to guess what the system was to make it a more difficult competition to win.
Arthur they read had risen to greatness with the help of his special adviser Merlin. Merlin, ably assisted by Archimedes the owl, had trained Arthur for great things. He had turned him into a fish to see the world from a different perspective. He had helped him do the washing up creating chaos in the kitchen. He had assisted him in fighting off the wicked witch Madam Mim. Who was to be the Special Adviser who could help a new hero triumph? How could they defeat the wicked sorcerer, Nigel? Who had the magic power to trigger growth in a seemingly moribund economy? Was Archimedes now displaced by AI? Was Merlin someone they knew? What if Merlin were a Conservative after all? They decided not to go there as it was too awful to think about.
They realised the new Arthur’s education had to be updated. They couldn’t possibly let Merlin turn candidates temporarily into fish. After all they had just given most of the fish away to the French to kill. Worse still their failure to ban the murderous European super trawlers meant they wouldn’t stand a chance of survival if they met one of those during their time swimming in the Channel. They also wanted to avoid all those illegal boats coming across.
There was no shortage of challengers for the task of taking over the huge government they had helped create. Angela strode forward. She had already won the title of Deputy Prime Minister, and fancied her chances as the natural successor. She took up the growth challenge by saying she would build 1.5 million new homes which would trigger so many jobs and delight so many people who could buy or rent a better property. She wielded her not inconsiderable sword to show she would know how to use the true sword of growth. She tried to scythe through layers of planners, quangos and local government bureaucracy to gain the right to build more homes. Meanwhile the government was making it ever dearer to build a home through more extensive regulation. It was putting people off being landlords through rules that were too penal. It had lost the confidence of markets who put up longer term interest rates affecting mortgages. Instead of Angela’s rich volcabulary creating a surge of new homes being built, the builders said it was too dear to build and they lacked customers. So housing output fell and the target of 1.5m homes looked impossible to hit. Angela then fell down over her own housing situation, failing to pay a tax she supported for others when buying one of her homes.
Rachel said there was no need to have a contest for leader, as she was going to ensure by her help that the current Prime Minister did deliver the growth he had promised. Rachel believed that all she had to do was to increase public spending a lot. That should, after all, create more jobs and provide more public facilities. The Treasury told her that she could not just do that by borrowing more, so she was talked into more and more ideas to take more money in tax to pay for her public projects. As the private sector was more productive than the public sector, this meant taking money away from companies and people who could generate growth and giving it to a government that did not know how to. Government had tried spending to grow with its very expensive HS 2 railway, which turned into a cash sink with half the projected line cancelled and the other half so delayed it was no use to anyone.
They had managed to improve half a rail line from Oxford to Cambridge but the Unions refused to operate the trains in a dispute over manning. Rachel became even more unpopular than the PM she was trying to help, and took more and more criticism for things going so wrong. Rachel proved you could not tax your way to higher growth.
Ed was the most popular of the contenders with Labour voters. He knew the answer to growth. It was all a matter of colour. Green was for go and for success. He said he knew how to spend both more public money and more private investment to replace all our electricity generation with wind and solar farms. When asked what we did when there was no sun or wind, he conceded we might need a bit of gas backup. That would need carbon capture and storage, another very expensive investment that brought no direct benefit to customers and taxpayers who had to pay for it. Ed busied himself with closing down our oil and gas industry at home, with supervising the collapse of our petrochemical industry, and closing our blast furnaces that made steel all in the name of green growth and less carbon dioxide. It was difficult to see how that helped our growth and was unpopular with all those losing their jobs. He did get a number of solar and wind projects up and running, but unfortunately so many of the jobs they created were in China as the UK wasn’t very good at making all the things you need for renewable power. Ed had been the leader once, so he thought he could use the Arthurian strapline of the “Once and future King”, though this brought back bad memories for some. Would he go for another promise pledged on a big block of limestone?
David thought he had the code to the sword. Being one of the brighter Cabinet members in his new job in charge of prisons he had worked out that if he let more prisoners out early it would cut the number of embarrassments from officials mistakenly letting them out. More importantly he had seen how enterprising so many of the prisoners were, running successful illegal drugs and contraband businesses whilst in jail. Why not let them out earlier to use those skills to grow the economy? Rachel from accounts could doubtless get their efforts into the growth numbers with one of the many adjustments to official statistics they were using to make things look better. As Deputy to the PM he thought he was on a bit of an inside track. After all he had helped the PM with his main growth policy of giving more powers over us to the EU and giving plenty of money to foreign governments along with the odd island. Surely the PM was right that if we gave lots away to foreigners they would like us more and that must be good for growth.
Andy saw himself as the Wart or young Arthur of the contest. Not one of those sitting round the table with the PM, he pitched for the job from Manchester. He told everyone he had cracked the growth problem for his city by getting access to more of that tax revenue Rachel had thoughtfully snatched from the public. Some unkindly pointed to the private construction of lots of expensive flats that did not all have residents or buyers, but he glossed over these tiresome details. He would repackage what Rachel was trying to do, but just say he would do more of it. He needed to find a place that would elect him as an MP if he was to stand any chance of being PM. He was coy about that bit, as any constituency might take exception to being told to swap MPs when there was no need to.
Wes was the super champ of the tv studios. He saw off the PM’s attempt to dismiss his ambitions to take over, converting the PM’s attack into a chance to show just how much better he was. He took much of the extra tax money raised in those taxes for the NHS he was trying to run. He spent a lot of it on sacking top managers who he thought were getting in the way of spending the money more wisely. That didnt help with the Unions who all had votes. He saw the need to do something about productivity as well as about spending. His trouble was the Labour party did not take so kindly to some of his more market oriented approach to growth and success.
There were also plenty of runners and riders to be the new Merlin. McSweeny had a reputation for wizardry, as he had helped the current PM win the election that had eluded them for 14 long years. He had swept aside Sue Gray, the civil servant turned adviser who had helped them prepare for government. As the PM slumped in the polls some blamed the adviser. Rachel was required to listen to Torsten Bell who wanted to tax the pensioners more by putting up income tax, but letting people on moderate wages off by cutting National Insurance. Rachel and her friends allowed this to be tested out, only to discover people did not like it and saw it as a big break with their tax promises. The true Merlin has not yet revealed himself, so we cannot yet see who he is backing as the true swordsman of growth.
What we do know is what Merlin will be saying. He will be telling his new Arthur that the UK is overtaxed, with too many talented people and companies leaving. He will be saying government spending is out of control, and more people need to work rather than be on benefits. He will explain to his pupil that government has made itself very unpopular by failing to control the borders, and by interfering to close down businesses by driving up energy prices and imposing bans on fossil fuels. Merlin clearly does not work for any of the runners and riders we have seen so far.
The sword of growth is stuck fast in the stone anvil. Only a new Arthur who can provide the magic formula for growth can unlock the digital lock which makes it unmoveable. I doubt any of the challengers above can do this. The UK is desperate for a new PM who loves our country and knows how to run a competent government.
For Jacob Rees Mogg’s reading of this see www.Facts4eu